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What is Shadow Work® and How is it Relevant to You?

Are you drawn to the term Shadow Work®, but realize that you don’t really understand what it means or how it would be relevant to you? Consider for a moment that you came into this world with a full range of self expression: frustration, sadness, fear, anger, jealousy, joy, delight, sensuality, sexuality, and so much more. Now consider that there are ways that our environment reflects that certain aspects of our self-expression are desirable and others are not. As young ones (even into adolescence), we are dependent on our parents/ caregivers for meeting our basic needs which include food and shelter but also love and validation. Our brains have a built-in survival mechanism that helps us adapt to our environment in order to foster more experiences of feeling safe (ie. getting our needs met) and fewer experiences of feeling unsafe.

Through the perspective of our young brains we make subconscious decisions as children to edit out the parts of our self expression that don’t seem to help us feel more love and safety. This process looks different in each of us. We may edit out our expression of sadness or fear or anger. We may even come to the conclusion that being joyful has a negative response from our environment. These parts of ourselves that we decide to limit become part of our shadow when we cast them into the darkness of our unconscious and try to keep them out of the light of consciousness. When shadow aspects of ourselves are deemed truly dangerous to our safety as children, we can push them so far beneath conscious awareness that we lose the ability to access even the positive aspects of those qualities. When anger goes into shadow, we may lose our ability to maintain healthy boundaries. When fear goes into shadow, we can lose our capacity to be discerning of what is and isn’t safe. When sadness enters shadow, we may lose our ability to process emotion effectively and can become depressed or have difficulty forming attachments with others. These are only a few examples of the kinds of dynamics that can occur. This process is unique for each person based on our familial dynamics and the way we respond to them.

So what does Shadow Work® do about these difficult internal dynamics? To begin with, it helps to make them conscious. Identifying different aspects of oneself and the conflicting values, messages, and desires they carry can be very enlightening for someone who has been feeling stuck and unable to make change. If someone is struggling to set boundaries in their life, recognizing that they have a part* of themselves that learned early in life to be accommodating in order to get love can be very helpful. So often we become very critical of the aspects of ourselves that seem to keep us stuck and feel like they contribute to further suffering in our lives. Coming to understand that these aspects of ourselves formed to protect us from hurt and help us get our needs met can help us to be more compassionate and gentle with ourselves. Have you ever noticed that the more you resist and judge a certain aspect of yourself, the more it seems to stubbornly hold on? This is often because these parts of ourselves believe they are essential for our safety and well-being. The more we can recognize these parts for what they are and honor them for the job they’ve done for us, the more they may be willing to evolve into ways of being that are more suitable for our current needs and desires. Shadow Work® offers some very effective tools for creating a productive dialogue with these inner protectors to help them make these shifts.

There are many different directions that Shadow Work® offers once the dynamics underlying a particular issue are clearly recognized. These include processes to help a person develop greater self-compassion and self-acceptance, set boundaries (either internally or with others), shift harmful patterns that have been passed down in a family lineage, or create greater trust, safety and support within themselves and with the world around them.

One of the things that I most appreciate about the Shadow Work® modality I learned is that it is deeply rooted in practices that focus on healing shame. Many psychological approaches can create a polarization between desirable and undesirable qualities, inadvertently leading a person to view certain aspects of themselves as bad. Through cultivating understanding that all aspects of ourselves developed for a reason, Shadow Work® keeps us from furthering this kind of self-judgment that can often be linked with shame. If you would like to learn more about Shadow Work®, you can find the website here. I would love to hear your comments below about what this article brought up for you.

*When Shadow Work® talks about parts, it does not mean that someone is dissociative or has multiple personalities. In Shadow Work®, it is seen as normal that we all have multiple aspects of ourselves that formed at different stages of our development.

Inhabiting Healthy Anger

When I was little I would have temper tantrums- tiny fists beating on the floor, arms and legs flailing. My young self was declaring my right to exist in the only way I knew how. I still have a strong sense of self and a strong will and believe me, these have been challenging traits to live with at times. I have hurt people with my words and felt the shame of not being able to control myself better. I didn’t know that there were other ways to be angry, ways that could actually be live-giving rather than destructive.

As I started to work with mindfulness and Shadow Work® as part of my own healing journey, my relationship to anger changed. I learned that my anger was connected to a sense of protecting myself and claiming my right to my own feelings and desires. I also discovered that feeling angry is just a constellation of sensations and energies in the body. Through experiencing these sensations with a sense of presence, I gained a greater connection to my own power and passion. I came to understand how to offer attention to my anger without lashing out at others. I also learned to forgive myself for the times when I didn’t manage it all perfectly.

Since then I have worked with many people, across a spectrum of age and gender, to help them inhabit their anger in a healthy way. So many people are afraid of anger, their own or that of others. Many people have lost some of their own power and sense of self because they have been stuffing their anger down for a long time. Often people equate anger with actions and don’t know how to relate to their anger without doing something destructive. Others feel out of control of anger and find that it destroys relationships and creates shame. Many people have come to realize that even when they do their best to suppress anger, it sneaks out in other ways.

Reclaiming healthy anger connects us to the strength of the warrior archetype. It is so fulfilling for me to see people reinhabit this aspect of themselves. I see people transform as they claim greater groundedness, empowerment, clarity, and confidence. How do you relate to your anger at this point in your life? What gifts and/or power have you discovered in anger? What about anger scares you? What might be the costs in your life of not inhabiting healthy anger? I would love to hear your feedback. If you’re interested in exploring this topic with me further, consider signing up for my Radical Acceptance of Anger class coming up Monday, October 6th. Individual sessions are also a powerful way to explore anger.

Your Creativity Is Your Birthright

“We are all creative. Creativity is the hallmark human capacity that has allowed us to survive thus far. Our brains are wired to be creative, and the only thing stopping you from expressing the creativity that is your birthright is your belief that there are creative people and uncreative people and that you fall in that second category.”
—Shelley Carson, Your Creative Brain

We are born with voices and bodies that want to express, to be heard and seen, and delighted in. As babies, we play with the range of sounds our mouths are capable of. We invent new combinations of vowels and consonants, creating a language all our own. We move our bodies in every way we can—wobbly at first and then more intentional as feet are investigated by mouths and every new texture is something to be smeared into glorious new forms of mess.

As children, we sing big and bold. We put on dance shows. We paint for the joy of color and the sensual wonder of creation. Then, sadly, somewhere along the way many of us get the message that we didn’t do it right. That we can’t sing or dance or make art because it doesn’t fit someone else’s standard of what those things mean. Our creative birthright gets squashed under someone else’s wounded projections. We learn to put our creativity, our freedom of expression into a room deep inside of us where it can’t get out because we can’t bear the hurt of another rejection. But the thing is our creativity is intricately tied to our soul, to the very essence of who we are. When we lock it away, we lose touch with something vital to the fullness of who we are.

I want you to know YOUR creativity, your self-expression is a gift. That it is uniquely yours and as such is a miraculous gift no one can bring into the world but you. I want to tell you that you have every right in the world to share your creativity in exactly the way it comes out of you. All the imperfections of it are part of what makes it beautiful. You have a right to have your creativity witnessed and received with unconditional love because creativity is not about the product—it is about the very act of creation itself.

How does your creativity want to be expressed in your life? In this day? In this moment? How do you long to express yourself?

If the idea of creativity seems too big, then I invite you to start small. Write a haiku. Do a 30-second dance with your pinky finger or your toes. Whistle a tune. Sing in the shower or car. Add a new spice to your cooking. Make a simple sculpture of rocks and sticks next time you are in nature. Draw a picture on the fogged up windows of your car. Doodle.

Whenever I think of small moments of creative expression I remember this wonderful scene from the movie Garden State. May it inspire your freedom to be your original self.

And if you feel drawn to explore your authentic creativity and heal blocks to your self-expression at our upcoming Creative Acts of Power retreat, we still have a few spaces available! Also, see Classes and Groups for information about my Self-Compassion Mindfulness Group and my Radical Acceptance of Our Emotions series!

With warm blessings for your creative discoveries,

Asha

Consenting to Receive Ourselves Just as We Are

In her new book True Refuge, meditation teacher and psychotherapist Tara Brach talks about the practice of “consenting to receive” our experience just as it is. This consenting is really the true meaning of radical acceptance.

This morning as I sat in my morning meditation, I noticed a tension in myself of needing to push to market my upcoming talk on Radical Acceptance and the upcoming Creative Acts of Power workshop I am coleading.

In response to this contraction, I felt an inner prayer of offering myself and my gifts fully into the world and surrendering into however they want to be received. I also felt my willingness to consent to receive experiences that might feel like making mistakes or failing. Given how much I have historically worked hard to avoid such experiences, this felt like a revelation to me.

“I consent to receive making mistakes.” “I consent to receive feeling like a failure.” This consent felt like a great softening and the relief of that brought tears to my eyes.

There is so much talk about how to be happy, how to be awakened, how to “be love not fear.” I find for myself that so much of that creates an inner separation in which parts of my experience are good and desirable and others are bad and are to be avoided. That avoidance can then create self-judgment and the impulse to avoid my feelings. Instead, I am finding more and more freedom in the willingness to experience whatever is there. From this place I can bow to the contracted spaces inside myself. I can honor them and welcome them to be there because they are held within a beautiful spaciousness.

This is what my upcoming talk is about: Radical Acceptance Through Embracing Our Shadows. I would love to see you there and would also love if you could pass this email on to others in your life who might benefit from hearing about and experiencing these ideas. I only give these free talks a few times a year. I would like as may people as possible to be able to benefit from these ideas that have been so liberating for me!

This “consenting to receive” also shows up in our creative exploration. I believe every one of us has creative gifts that long to be expressed. It is a powerful thing to allow our creativity to move fully through us in its pure and raw form. My upcoming weekend retreat with artist Zoe Alowan (who also happens to be my beautiful mother) is a wonderful opportunity to feel the depth and power of our own self-expression. I hope you’ll check it out and also share it with others in your life who might benefit!

Lastly, I invite you to notice in the moments after reading this what aspects of your experience might be asking for acceptance. They are usually the feelings or sensations in our body that we are trying to avoid or escape from. When you notice them, I invite you to try this simple phrase “I consent to receive this …” I would love to hear how this simple practice impacts you!